HAYES: Holland leaves behind big shoes to fill

Two-and-a-half weeks from today, the Boston University Class of 2011 will graduate. The approximately 4,000 members of the class will depart BU for the last time.

One of those graduating will be the lone senior on this year’s men’s basketball team, John Holland. As he collects his diploma on May 23, the program will officially lose one of the greatest players ever to run between the baselines and sidelines of Case Gymnasium.

In his four years at BU, Holland has proven time and again why few players who have come before him were better. Since he was named the 2008 America East Rookie of the Year, Holland has stood over the entire rest of the conference.

His dominance makes him practically irreplaceable.

Freshman year, he complemented the Rookie of the Year honors with memberships on the all-defensive and all-rookie teams. On Feb. 28 of that year, he dropped 32 points against University of Hartford, both a career and AE single-game season-high.

Sophomore year, he was named to the all-conference first-team, hitting 80 3-pointers, playing 1,065 minutes and scoring 18.1 points per game. Most visibly, just one week shy of the anniversary of his record-breaking game against Hartford, he was awarded Top Play status on SportsCenter for a dunk over a then-mustache-free Evan Fjeld.

When Patrick Chambers became coach of the Terriers prior to the 2009-10 season, Holland was not slowed. He broke the 1,000-point barrier at the beginning of his junior year and scored 673 total points during the season, more than Tunji Awojobi – a BU legend – scored in 1997. He then set a new career high in points with 43 against University of Delaware on Feb. 20.

For his senior year, Holland continued his tradition of playing remarkably good basketball by scoring an average of 19.2 points per game. On December 29, he flirted with his career high of 32 points when he made 31 against Quinnipiac University. At the end of the season, his efforts were rewarded as he was named the AE Player of the Year and the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

His performances in the postseason this year, particularly the America East championship and the NCAA Tournament, were nothing short of phenomenal. In front of a couple thousand riled-up Terrier fans at Agganis Arena, Holland carried the team to the conference title. And, in his final game for the Terriers, Holland kept BU with the top-ranked University of Kansas Jayhawks for one half, something even the most optimistic Terrier fans could not have predicted.

Five years from now, if Holland has not been inducted into the BU Athletics Hall of Fame in the first year he becomes eligible, and his No. 23 jersey is not hanging from the rafters, there is something seriously wrong with this university and the people who run the athletic department.

If Chambers, his assistants and his players wish to return to the NCAA Tournament next year, they must find some way to fill Holland’s massive shoes. The near-future success of BU basketball hinges upon solving three problems:

Replacing John Holland.

Replacing (dramatic pause) John Holland.

Doing well on finals, and then focusing once again on how to replace one John Holland.

It is a nearly impossible task. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to call it an impossibility. No one player will be able to fill John Holland’s place on the team.

Collectively, however, they have a chance.

To replace Holland’s stupendous offensive skills, the team will need at least three players to score regularly in double-digits, likely Jake O’Brien, Darryl Partin and D.J. Irving. Partin, who posted 14.3 points per game this season and Irving, who added an average of 8.0 points per game, will likely improve their offensive production as they play larger roles on the team.

O’Brien, returning from a fractured left foot, is the largest remaining variable. If he can return to where he was his sophomore year, scoring an average of 13.8 points per game, or even his freshman year when he scored 12.5 points per game, the Terriers might have something. If O’Brien cannot come close to this level, success will still be possible, but not easy.

An uncertain future seems to be a recent recurring theme for this program, however. Heading into the 2009-10 season, there was debate over how new head coach Patrick Chambers would lead a team comprised almost entirely of players recruited by his predecessor, Dennis Wolff. The answer was a talented group of seniors around which Chambers built the squad.

Entering the 2010-11 campaign, the question was how Chambers would replace Corey Lowe, Tyler Morris and Carlos Strong, that talented group of seniors. The answer to that question was John Holland.

And now, the question of how John Holland will be replaced has come up. Within the next few months, an answer will be developed, and the replacement or (more likely) replacements for one of the best players in the history of BU basketball will be found. While it won’t exactly be Holland, the answer will still work.